FC Revisited 21 January 2011

Last visited: March 2005

Venue: Belgian Beer Garden Bluestone (St Kilda Rd)

This month, we break with our FC tradition, of visiting only new bars in the CBD, to return to the beer garden at Belgian Beer Cafe Bluestone. We’d love to see you in the garden. Gnome outfits optional. For more info on the venue, we’ll leave it to the Belgians… the BBC Bluestone is considered one of Australia’s largest beer gardens with its beautiful surroundings, shaded by elm trees and set against a backdrop of historic architecture. It was established in the grounds of Vision Australia (formerly the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind) in 2002. Housed in an historic bluestone building, it comprises a bar and restaurant reminiscent of a 1920s Brussels bistro as well as Melbourne’s biggest and liveliest beer garden. The bar and restaurant’s interior features dark timbers, rustic furniture and leadlight windows that open out to the beer garden.

Time: 6pm onwards

Address: 557 St Kilda Road, Melbourne

Phone: 9529 2899

Website: http://www.belgianbeercafemelbourne.com/bbc-bluestone.htm

From 6pm, Friday 10 December  24 Moons ACDC Lane, off Flinders Lane, City  Tel. 9650 0035    www.24moons.com.au

Remember Honky Tonks? Well 24 Moons is how many moons-ago you visited HT because it’s changed one cool jacket for another fine set of threads.Descriptions rightly intrigue: Contemporary, minimalist, changeable,dimly-lit, digital yet forest-like, with soft moonlight, sometimes DJs n decks, and at other times… the song of birds and insects?! Whether you like cocktails or tap beers, birds or buzzy tunes, this end-o-year FC is sure to eclipse other less lunar-tic offers. See you there.

We used to say you could count on one hand the times FC has broken Melbourne’s CBD grid. To be honest, we’ve lost count (after more than five years!).This month, we sortie to the home of the Skipping Girl Sign, Dights Falls, Victoria Park Football Stadium: Abbotsford, home to hot tea, healthy food and heroin. Our mission starts at The Aviary, a bar in the heart of Little Saigon. The plan is to then cross the road for something cheap and cheerful. We hope you can make it along.

271 Victoria Street Abbotsford VIC 3067
T/ 9428 7727       eatdrink@theaviary.com.au

This month’s ghoulish Friday Club sinks to new depths to explore a couple of cheeky establishments challenging the notion that all that’s cool in this school lives down a laneway. Enter: the basement… “Sweatshop is the mischievous little brother searching through the undies drawers of its big sister Seamstress. Sweatshop is all about absolute quality delivered with style, a dash of fun and plenty of jest. We hope you’ve got your passport…‘cause you’re going to flavour country!!” Following a couple of PornStar Martinis in the basement, we’ll briefly resurface before diving back down to dine at Izakaya Den – from 8.30pm. “The Age” says the Den is where “art-meets-utility specials lists projected on the wall, to the water glasses bearing the cute-yet-sinister cartoons of Yoshitomo Nara, … all-Japanese staff is dressed in black with red sneakers, like funky ninjas from a Tarantino flick, … [and] on the menu, there’s a lively, stylish mix of Japanese izakaya classics, some reinterpretations thereof and a few blow-ins given the Japanesque treatment … Like Denton and co-owners Takashi Omi (former assistant manager at Verge) and Miyuki Nakahara (former manager at Kenzan) say: no rules.” FC has booked a table for 20 so come along and bring your juke box money – for dancing afterwards if we are feeling frisky!

Friday 13 August 6pm+

Location 1: Sweatshop at Seamstress, Basement, 113 Lonsdale St, between Exhibition and Russell, 9663 6363, Click here for more

Location 2: then at 8.30pm, Izakaya Den, Basement, 114 Russell St (cnr Little Collins St) 9654 2977
Click here for more

What do convicts and tigers have in common? This month’s Friday Club, which takes us to a first-fleet brewer’s pub, followed by Chinatown’s most popular dumpling bar*. With the sudden crash to wintery temperatures calling out the ladles and lap rugs, our hibernation-counter-temptation is ale (the main drink in a medieval village) and copious plates of ‘XLB’ pork n prawn dumplings. Besides, we’d all do well to remind ourselves that in this Year of the Tiger, we should be seizing the day and opportunities to exploit our own talents. Just look at James: He seized 5 hens and 4 cocks and won a cruise to Australia, and when the governor tasted his beer “of the most exquisite flavour”, he was given a cow from the Government herd. If you like a hoppy ending, see you on July 2nd. *Friday Club has booked a table for 12 at HuTong. First in, best dressed!

Friday, 2 July, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 10:30pm
Location: James Squire Brewhouse
Street: Cnr Russell and Little Collins Streets
City/Town: Melbourne, Australia

Click here to View Map

If you can remember our Friday Club at the Red Hummingbird, you probably weren’t there – to borrow a Woodstockian phrase. Well, this new Melbin bar has fallen from the same nest, so to tweet. And just like the Humm’ was in its time The Place To be for an after-work bevvie, so the Pea’ promises to be a cracker. The nice gal who answered the phone BEGGED Friday Clubbers to get there early and dodge the fun-sapping queue, forming from 6.30pm, she said. That means no booking any hair straightening appts or meetings after 4pm and def no last-minute dashes to the gym. NO. L-E-T I-T G-O. Come as you are and make it EARLY. Friday Club is about work-life balance, keeping tabs on the latest and greatest watering holes this city has to offer, and engaging in a loosely-based six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon type social experiment. Don’t miss the FC at the Emerald Peacock. Join the flock!

The stairs to the left of the 7-11 now lead to, well, the Recorded Music Salon, cafe and bar variety. Opening a few months ago, the Recorded Music Salon is a long and lean room with a gorgeous wide window offering views of the most Paris-ish visage of the Paris end of Collins Street. During the day the skeletal plain trees mope against the vintage architecture, and at night the tram stop and the street lights wash the facades with a warm glow.

Where;

Recorded Music Salon, Level 1, 11, Collins Street, Melbourne
www.recordedmusicsalon.com.au
When;

From 6pm – Friday 20th November

PLEASE NOTE TO REGISTER INTEREST IN FRIDAY CLUB PLEASE USE FACEBOOK – search on ‘Friday Club Australia’ to receive updates

Opening appropriately on Halloween Vincent Lyce’s Final Curtain is a macabre mix of comedy, murder and mystery served with a delicious dinner. Ex wives, illegitimate sons and fans alike will gather to celebrate the illustrious career of Vincent Lyce. Forty years as the star of horror movies as forgettable as “Dump of Death” and “When Death Knocks Don’t Answer”.

Review

“This is a highly original show and makes a fantastic and fun night out. Vincent Lyce’s Final Curtain is saucy, clever, macabre and full of innuendo and humour. Less of a classic whodunit, it’s a theatrical and musical show – think Rocky Horror Show meets Carry On Film – that invites audience participation.”

Show Dates – 31/10/09 and 14/11/09
Tickets – $80 pp for show and 3 course dinner
Venue – Queens Loft, 133 Queensbridge Street, Southbank
Bookings – Call 03 9698 8011

www.vincentlyce.com

OUR APOLOGIES BUT A LAST MINUTE CHANGE OF VENUE –
When: Friday 9th October from 6pm
Where: Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka?
5 Riverside Quay, Southbank VIC 3006? – (03) 9690 5777?

PLEASE NOTE

STARTING NEXT TIME – We plan to start using Facebook to send out Friday Club event invitations and notices, so if you are already on Facebook simply search for ‘Friday Club Australia’ and join up. This is because Facebook has an RSVP facility and it’s free.

If you are not on Facebook then you can sign up for free and create a very simple profile simply for the receipt of Friday Club emails. You don’t have to use it for anything else and you can make your profile totally private too so no one can find you.

It’s been a while but we are back! We’ll not bore you with why we’ve taken a break but we are back firing on all 4 cylinders. We hope the return of Friday Club on 21 August will be marked with an extra specially big turn out, so please swing by from 6pm if you can.

Where;

Tuscan Bar
L1, 79 Bourke Street
Melbourne

When;

Friday 21 August

www.tuscanbar.com.au

We plan to start using Facebook to send out Friday Club event invitations and notices, so if you are already on Facebook simply search for ‘Friday Club Australia’ and join up. This is because Facebook has an RSVP facility and it’s free.

If you are not on Facebook then you can sign up for free and create a very simple profile simply for the receipt of Friday Club emails. You don’t have to use it for anything else and you can make your profile totally private too so no one can find you.